Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Burmese kinship

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The Burmese kinship system is a fairly complex system used to define family in the Burmese language.

Contents

In the Burmese kinship system:

  • Maternal and parental lineages are not distinguished, except for members of the parents' generations.
  • Relative age of a sibling relation is considered.
  • Gender of the relative is distinguished.
  • Generation from ego is indicated.

    • Grades of kinship

    The Burmese kinship system identifies and recognizes six generations of direct ancestors, excluding the ego:

    1. Be (ဘဲ) - great-grandfather's great-grandfather (6 generations removed)
    2. Bin (ဘင်) - great-grandfather's grandfather (5 generations removed)
    3. Bi (ဘီ) - great-grandfather's father (4 generations removed)
    4. Bay (ဘေး) - great-grandfather (3 generations removed)
    5. Pho (ဘိုး) - grandfather (2 generations removed)
    6. Phay (ဖေ) - father (1 generation removed)

    The Burmese kinship system identifies seven generations of direct descendants, excluding the ego:

    1. Tha (သား) - (1 generation removed)
    2. Myi (မြေး) - (2 generations removed)
    3. Myit (မြစ်) - (3 generations removed)
    4. Ti (တီ) - (4 generations removed)
    5. Tut (တွတ်) or Hmyaw (မျှော့) - (5 generations removed)
    6. Kyut (ကျွတ်) - (6 generations removed)
    7. Hset (ဆက်) - (7 generations removed)

    Extended family and terminology

    Kinship terms differ depending on the degree of formality, courtesy or intimacy. Also, there are regional differences in the terms used.

    Common suffixes

  • female: မ (ma)
  • male: ဖ (hpa)

    • Burmese also possesses kin numeratives (in the form of suffixes):

  • eldest: ကြီး (gyi) or အို (oh)
  • second youngest: လတ် (lat)
  • youngest: လေး (lay), ထွေး (htway), or ငယ် (nge)

    • Relationships

    The Burmese kinship system also recognizes various relationships between family members that are not found in English, including:

  • တူအရီး (tu ayi) - relationship between uncle or aunt and nephew or niece
  • ခမည်းခမက် (khami khamet) - relationship between parents of a married couple
  • မယားညီအစ်ကို (maya nyi-ako) - relationship between the husbands of two sisters
  • သမီးမျောက်သား (thami myauk tha) - relationship between cousins, used in Arakanese language

    • References

    Burmese kinship Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA